Established | 1960 (collection); 1971 (building) |
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Location | Royal Hospital Road London, SW3 United Kingdom |
Coordinates | 51°29′10″N 0°09′36″W / 51.486111°N 0.16°W |
Visitors | 215,721 (2008, up 7.3%)[1] |
Director | Justin Maciejewski |
Public transit access | Sloane Square |
Website | nam.ac.uk |
The National Army Museum is the British Army's central museum. It is located in the Chelsea district of central London, adjacent to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the home of the "Chelsea Pensioners". The museum is a non-departmental public body. It is usually open to the public from 10:00 to 17:30, except on 25–26 December and 1 January. Admission is free.
Its remit for the overall history of British land forces contrasts with those of other military museums in the United Kingdom concentrating on the history of individual corps and regiments of the British Army. It also differs from the subject matter of the Imperial War Museum, another national museum in London, which has a wider remit of theme (war experiences of British civilians and military personnel from all three services) but a narrower remit of time (after 1914). It also covers the pre-independence history of the East India Company Army, the British Indian Army and other colonial units as well as housing the regimental or corps collections of the East Kent Regiment,[2] the Middlesex Regiment[3] the Women's Royal Army Corps,[4] and the Irish regiments disbanded in 1922,[4] part of that of the former Museum of Army Transport and the archives of the Coldstream Guards and Grenadier Guards.[4]